


Like the Sweet Song of a Choir

by Hotel_Denouement



Category: Book of Life (2014)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Letters, Slow Build, somewhat anachronistic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:05:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8772949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotel_Denouement/pseuds/Hotel_Denouement
Summary: “It's just that—” María paused, choosing her words carefully. “Staying with your mother might not be…conducive to healing.”Joaquín recuperates at his mother's. Meanwhile, letters from over the years collect no dust in the Three Amigos' possession.





	

_Dear María,_

  
_This letter is from the both of us, ~~Manolo and Joaquín~~ ~~Joaquín and Manolo~~. Even though you are in Spain and we are still in San Angel, that doesn’t mean the Three Amigos are completely split apart! At least, we hope you’re in Spain by now. We don’t really know how long it takes to get there. We’re guessing that by the time this letter arrives at the convent, you’ll be there. Your dad hasn’t mentioned you writing to him yet, but he also doesn’t talk much about stuff other than training with Joaquín. (that’s me! And it’s SO EASY!)_

  
_What is Spain like? Is it a lot like Mexico? What is the convent like? Things back home are the same as when you left, but we will keep you updated! Please write soon. We miss you very much._

  
_~~Love, Manolo Sán~~ _  
_~~Love, Joaq~~ _

_Love,                        Love,_

_Manolo Sánchez         Joaquín Mondragón_

 

* * *

 

Visits from his mother, Joaquín pondered, were more like brief hauntings by a ghost, and going to visit her was like staying in a haunted mansion. When his father died, Joaquín’s mother Gertrude retreated away from the world, into her home and into herself, a shadow of the woman she used to be. His mother was never _unloving_ , not really, but she loved Joaquín in a vague and remote way, and when Captain Mondragón was killed, Joaquín knew whatever true connection he had with Gertrude died as well. It was a relief, then, when his grandmother stepped in and Gertrude shut herself away in her home in the city. He never begrudged his mother her mourning, but the way she drifted aimlessly through Casa Mondragón, hollow-eyed and pale, and the way she wept at night, agonized and echoing through the halls, was unbearable to the young Joaquín.

  
But Joaquín was grown now, and he could handle the infrequent and ghostly visits with his mother. He no longer buckled under the weight of the grief in her eyes, fresh and festering after all these years. He no longer desperately searched her face for just a glimpse of the love, however distant, he knew she felt for him, and the surge of helpless, longing rage he felt when he couldn't see it as a child had long since dulled to a resentful spark that was easily contained.

  
He wrote this in his letter to Manolo and María, though not in as many words. He didn't want to worry them. In any case, this visit was different, because they actually had something to talk about. Visits between Joaquín and Gertrude were typically preceded by a letter, announcing that one of them would be dropping by, so the other had time to steel and prepare themselves. However, immediately following María and Manolo’s wedding, Joaquín bade the newlyweds a final congratulations before gathering his things and riding promptly to the train station, where he tapped out a brief telegram to his mother letting her know he was coming. She wouldn't ask why, at least not right away, although Joaquín knew that his friends were concerned when he told them he would be out of town for a few weeks.

  
“Your mother?” Manolo had said, wide-eyed and plainly worried. “Are you sure?”

  
“ _Ay_ , Joaquín, do you think that's the best idea?” María agreed with a frown.

  
Joaquín felt a strange mixture of grateful fondness and chagrin at the two of them. They were not yet married 24 hours, visibly consumed by their love for one another—their every movement minutely coordinated, magnetic, touching subtly at all times—and yet they both focused on Joaquín, sharp and unwavering, the moment he told them. They knew him better than anyone, his past, his soul, his family, and how he felt about it all. He loved them fiercely for it. Still, he felt an ugly, bitter shame; the Medal of Everlasting Life couldn't shield him from the effects his father’s death had on Gertrude. It was embarrassing that this single, private weakness was clear as day to them.

  
“It'll be fine, relax,” he said defensively. “I haven't seen her in a long time, anyway. And I don't want her to read about the Battle of San Angel and its casualties—” he pointed to his eyepatch, “without me having told her already.”

  
“Come on, you battle-worn hero,” Manolo said, warm and playfully cajoling, “don't run off so soon. Rest here, with us.”

  
“It's just that—” María paused, choosing her words carefully. “Staying with your mother might not be…conducive to healing.”

  
“I love it when you use smart words like that,” Joaquín deflected, flirtatious by sheer habit. He flushed, abashed, glancing apologetically at Manolo next to her, who merely rolled his eyes with a good-natured smile playing on his lips, just like old times. Like they were still happily fighting for María’s hand, like nothing had changed.

  
“In any case,” Joaquín continued, stepping back over the figurative line in the sand, on his side alone and respectful of their marriage, “you two have your honeymoon to enjoy, and I should make myself scarce for that.”

  
“Joaquín,” Manolo said, softly. Joaquín was afraid of the tenderness in his voice.

  
“Guys,” he insisted, trying not to sound frantic, “it’s fine. I will be fine. I'll see my mother and recuperate. Three weeks, and I’ll be back home.”

  
María and Manolo stood across from him, quietly fretful, and Joaquin tried not to feel guilty for the tangible change in the energy between the two of them, how Manolo’s hand on María’s hip seemed less racy; their touching wasn't a politely concealed passion, but a shared comfort, like parents at a sick child’s hospital bedside. Joaquín didn't want them to worry.

  
So he paraphrased as he wrote to them, tapping away at Gertrude’s typewriter, sparing them the word-for-word when Gertrude’s eyes, dull and far-away, looked him all over and seemed to lock on him for once, in the here and now, not seeing the ghost of Captain Mondragón. Her eyebrows rose marginally and she stilled for a long moment.

  
“My son, what happened?” she asked, puzzlement edging into her deep frown.

  
Joaquín hesitated, gathering himself. “There was a battle in San Angel,” he said. “Against Chakal and his men. We won. Chakal is dead.”

  
Gertrude’s gaze was fixated on his eyepatch. The wound beneath it ached under her scrutiny. “You were hurt?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Never before,” she murmured thoughtfully, lifting her teacup to her lips. Her eyes stayed focused on her son as she drank, and Joaquín felt a slight, miraculous ease of tension in his chest. With a new, interesting topic to discuss, there was the feeling that something, _anything_ , hovered in the air between them that wasn't his father’s death alone.

  
“Never before,” Joaquín agreed. He shifted guiltily in his chair. “Mama, there was this Medal—”

  
Gertrude sighed deeply, cutting him off, and set her teacup delicately back on its saucer. “A Medal. Yes, _mijo_ , I know. The Medal of Everlasting Life.”

  
Joaquín stared at her, open-mouthed, and set his teacup down too, with an unsteady _clink!_ “You _knew?_ This whole time you knew I had the Medal?”

  
“I knew _of_ the Medal,” Gertrude clarified. “I knew of it long before you came to have it. It made sense that you had it, when tales of your greatness spread across Mexico.”

  
“Mama.”

  
“Just like your father.” Her voice was quiet, far away, as she idly adjusted the doily under her saucer.

  
“ _Mother_.” His voice was forceful, slightly unsteady, but Gertrude looked at him. “What do you know of the Medal?”

  
His mother’s gaze was unwavering as she regarded him across the table. Finally she extended her hands to him, rising, and Joaquín stood as he took them in his own. She guided him away from the table, placing her arm in his, and they walked to the vast wall of windows that overlooked the luscious gardens downtown.

  
“Tell me about the being who gave you the Medal,” Gertrude said.

  
“It was a man,” Joaquín told her, eyebrows furrowing curiously. “An old man, on the Day of the Dead when I was ten. A disguise, I know, because I saw him again before I came here. He was tall, with skulls in his eyes and tarry wings.”

  
“Xibalba,” Gertrude said.

  
“Yes, Manolo told me who he was.” Joaquín peered out the window into the garden square across the way, absently searching the vibrant colors for the flowers he and María used to pick for Manolo, the ones that smelled like Carmen Sánchez. Missing an eye made it difficult to see far, but his remaining one was drawn to the great swaths of red marigolds still blooming vividly over much of the garden. Gazing at them, he continued, “And La Muerte. La Muerte herself was there too, Mama. She was beautiful. They both were.”

  
He felt Gertrude looking at him and he flushed deeply. He never thought before speaking. Hastily he went on, “I gave the Medal back to Xibalba once the battle was over. I wanted...I need to be a hero without it.”

  
“Do you yearn for it?” Gertrude asked softly, so softly that Joaquín could barely hear her. When he only looked at her, she said, “That Medal is a poisonous thing. Do you wish you hadn't returned it?”

  
“No,” Joaquín said, startled.

  
“Good. You were— _are_ young. Spared the madness that gripped your father. Close to the end, you remember.”

  
“Don't,” Joaquín said sharply, anxiously, at the waver in her voice. He did remember, how his father—fiercely loving, even in his last months—grew unstable and obsessive over something Joaquín didn't understand. But he understood now, from what little his mother had told him.

  
“So Dad had the Medal too,” Joaquín said quietly. Gertrude nodded. “Why didn't you tell me?”

  
Gertrude slowly pulled away, removing her arm from Joaquín’s. He remained at the window, watching his mother drift closer to the east wall of the parlor, where a great portrait of Captain Mondragón hung above a grand fireplace. Joaquín could tell by the draw of her back and shoulders that she was crying before she said anything.

  
“I was a greedy, materialistic little thing,” Gertrude said tremulously. “Your father was a kind, beautiful man, but I wouldn't have him for a husband if he couldn't give me the luxuries I was used to.” She laughed, a hollow, wet sound. “Oh, Liebling, your father...he amassed such wealth, he wouldn't stop until I would have him, and he would have me.

  
“We’ve always been playthings to the gods, even to the ones who love mortals, like La Muerte. She and Xibalba saw your father’s efforts and made a wager...but Xibalba, that wretch, he gave him a magic medal, and he was unstoppable, a hero, showered in riches wherever he went...but that Medal is an ugly, toxic trinket, Joaquín.”

  
Gertrude was weeping openly now, and Joaquin resisted the childish urge to plug his ears like he had done years ago when he would hear his mother’s terrible sobs in the night.

  
“The lust it inspires in the hearts of men who wear it will turn into madness,” Gertrude wept, “and those who have touched it will hunger for it too. His brother longed for it so viciously—” She covered her face with trembling hands. “Chakal took it, he took it and killed him.”

  
If she said anything more before dissolving into wordless, body-wracking sobs, Joaquín didn't hear it. A roaring, rushing sound filled his head at Chakal’s name falling from Gertrude’s lips. He left her there, crying in the parlor. Stunned and overwhelmed with information, his body moved on autopilot, taking him from the manor and down the street, and when he found himself in the gardens downtown, he felt like he was waking up from a nightmare. He looked to his left, at the fragrant, familiar, pale pink flowers that twinkled from the chest-high shrub, and he grounded himself in the present, the facts.

  
Chakal was dead, and no family to Joaquín. His father was dead too, but his legacy seemed less daunting, knowing his greatness was borne from the Medal just like Joaquín’s. His mother had died too, in a way, and it was better that she and Joaquín didn't visit often. But Joaquín was alive, and San Angel still stood and thrived, and his best friends were safe and married, and the pale pink flowers that smelled like Carmen Sánchez were bright and welcoming.

  
He picked three of them and returned to Casa Mondragón to press them and finish his letter to Manolo and María. He didn't hear from his mother as he went over what he had learned from her, and he promised in the closing of the letter that he was fine. He considered signing “Sincerely,” but settled honestly on “Love, Joaquín.”

  
-

  
_Dear Joaquín_ ,

_  
I understand that you can’t write to me as often as you used to. My father has kept you very busy, as you’ve said, and he is indeed tireless—and tiresome—in that respect. I still don’t think it’s right that he lets you ride out to fight bandits with his soldiers. Sixteen years old may seem like manhood to the two of you, but to me it’s reckless. I think we’re still children. But I did not write to fuss._

_  
You didn’t ask, but I have also been too busy to write to you and Manolo as often as I would like. The sisters and the other girls and I here at the convent have been moving constantly, helping in many orphanages and hospitals in Europe. You will notice that I am currently writing from Pamplona. It’s that time of year, of course, but we don’t actually get to attend San Fermín. No, we just get to help provide medical attention, patching up those idiots who take part in the running of the bulls. It’s a stupid and dangerous event, not to mention cruel to the bulls, but it’s nothing compared to what I saw last year at the Toro de la Vega. Do you remember when I wrote to you about that? It made me physically sick. I don’t think the sisters meant for us to see the event. I told Manolo about it too, but I might’ve accidentally made him think that I consider his matador training just as terrible. I know bullfighting isn’t what he wants to do, his dad is just so stubborn. I didn’t mean to upset him. I will probably write to him once I have left Pamplona, so that I will have better things to tell him about._

_  
Anyway, tell me more about what you’ve been writing! I would really love to read some. You’re only ever shy about THAT! Ever since you first told me you write stories! I have read all the books I could fit into my suitcase when we set off from the convent, and I’m dying to read more things. I’ve sent you some of my paintings, so it’s only fair. Please? ♥_

_  
Hope to hear from you soon. I miss you._

  
_Love,_  
_María Posada_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope to continue soon!


End file.
